Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (with Placement Year)

at University of Hertfordshire - De Havilland Campus United Kingdom

This degree involves a practical workshop programme, establishing and refining your understanding of the tactile qualities and properties of materials and how they can be manipulated to express your ideas. In the First Year you’ll learn contemporary approaches to designing and making across a range of 2D and 3D media. Then, in the Second Year, you’ll focus your interests in order to reach the high level of refinement necessary for the professional marketplace.

The final year results in a production of richly diverse range of artifacts - such as experimental clothing and accessories, objects and surfaces for interiors, site-specific pieces and conceptual works for exhibition or commission. Our students produce a richly diverse range of artefacts, such as experimental clothing and accessories, objects and surfaces for interiors, site-specific pieces and conceptual works for exhibition or commission.

• The Contemporary Design Crafts Textiles degree encourages fresh ideas, inventive use of materials and techniques, and awareness of contemporary markets.
• You establish and refine your interests in the field of textiles to reach the high level of skills demanded by the professional marketplace.
• Placements develop a versatile understanding of the workplace, establishing our graduates as contemporaries in a competitive professional market.

The MPhys allows you to study physics in greater depth and breadth than our BSc. It’s particularly recommended if you’re interested in pursuing research in industry, government or academia, or if you want to go on to postgraduate study. During the course you’ll study more advanced topics such as atmospheric physics, medical physics and computational fluid dynamics. You’ll also undertake a large research project with one of our research centres. We have an innovative strand of industrial projects, supported by the Institute of Physics, that gives you direct experience of working in industrial research. You’ll also have the option of studying abroad or spending a year in industry or at a research institution.

• The MPhys programme allows students to study physics to a greater depth and breadth than our BSc programme.
• An MPhys is particularly recommended for those students interested in pursuing research in the industrial, government and academic sectors, and who are likely to consider undertaking further postgraduate study (MSc and/or PhD degrees).
• In the MPhys year you will study more advanced courses in a range of Physics specialisms (including Atmospheric Physics, Medical Physics and Computational Fluid Dynamics), plus undertake a large research project with one of our research centres.
• Your research project will form a third of your final year and you will be closely supervised and guided by one of our experienced researchers while you work on a cutting-edge problem in modern Physics.   Previous projects include work on the physics of aerosols in the atmosphere, inductive charging losses in electric vehicles, and using Josephson junctions as measurement standards.
• We have an innovative strand of industrial Physics projects supported by the Institute of Physics that give you direct experience of working in industrial research.

• The MA Animation degree allows you to develop your 2D or 3D Digital Animation skills and knowledge to a more advanced level.
• You will produce a personal portfolio which in approach, style and vision looks to the forefront of current practices.
• The course allows you to extend your theoretical and contextual understanding of animation, its audiences and media culture.
• You will become familiar with professional-level enquiry, research, creative invention, project planning and management practices.
• The course is taught within a multi-disciplinary environment of discussion and exploration of ideas.

This award enables you to develop creative practical skills in a range of digital processes that are used in Animation and related fields. Within this course you can choose to focus in a particular area of animation such as 2D animation, 3D animation or combine the areas to create new forms and ideas from the fusion of techniques and styles.

Within 2D animation you can look at traditional animation techniques and blend these skills and approaches with new digital media to form new content and formats. You will explore the rich heritage of 2D animation and the possibilities of experimentation, both in form and content, that traditional animation has actively encouraged.

3D digital animation has become the most popular form of animated imagery over the past decade,used by more experimental practitioners who question the appearance, form and uses it has in present-day media. In this form, you will challenge your preconceptions of what 2D or 3D animation can do, which helps you become an innovator in the field. You will have the opportunity to explore the range of possibilities available to the practitioner, mixing technical knowledge of the subject with the creative freedom that an understanding of the theory and context of new media practices brings.

The postgraduate Animation programme involves an induction, seminars and social events for students and staff, allowing you to be part of a friendly and supportive postgraduate community of film-makers, musicians and professionals working in new media. Senior research staff and internationally renowned professionals work with postgraduate students, helping to develop original and challenging work. Your study includes ways of thinking about the cultural resonance of your work, the audiences it is made for, the nature of creativity and the role of the cultural industries in a modern knowledge economy.

Through your study you will develop a range of project management skills and an ability to identify and manage your own learning. You will consider the role of enterprise opportunities in commercial, professional and social environments, as well as specialist modules in your chosen discipline area, the programme includes shared modules with other postgraduate awards in the School of Creative Arts. This structure promotes cross-discipline discussion and maintains the enthusiasm and focus of discipline specialists. It enables you to develop key transferable skills of postgraduate study grounded in activities that have currency, relevance and application for your future career and further academic study.

This degree enables you to explore the nature of current sound and music technologies, using the latest digital audio hardware, software and programming packages. You'll investigate topics such as sampling, sequencing, mixing, remixing, signal processing, sound editing and recording, alongside audio programming, internet audio and electronics, ensuring that you'll be well equipped with the knowledge and hands-on experience expected of today’s professionals.

• Our programme is Accredited by JAMES, who represent the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS), the Music Producers Guild (MPG) and Associate Industry Bodies.
• Develop excellent technical skills over the course of your degree, and benefit from our high quality studio, listening room, venue and sound resources including those by SSL, Yamaha, Avid, Focusrite, Quested, Genelec, Neumann, TLA, Lexicon and Drawmer to name but a few.
• Excellent industry input is built into the design of the degree awards from a huge number of areas within the wider music industry.
• The degree awards within the programme are designed to expose you to areas of music, sound and audio technology that you might not even know exist yet.  "Coming to this course has really given my brain the kick-start it needed, and I'm beginning to see near endless possibilities with where I can go." - Glenn Osborn, second year student
• We have a strong record of students from the programme securing placement years between years 2 and 3 of their studies.  Placement destinations include Focusrite,  Sound Technology (a leading distributor of high profile brands for the Music Retail and Professional Audio industries), The Famous Company, and a number of recording studios.
• Every year, organisations and companies approach us to recommend our graduating students.
• Music business is woven into your degree study at every year giving you the skills to slot into the music industry (or create your own business).
• Organise and Participate ‘live’ projects, and our ‘JamJar’ showcase live events.
• Benefit from studying in creative arts school and collaborate with filmmakers and animators in realising fully featured, professional standard media projects.
• We have some of the best resources in the UK, including the 39 million pound entertainment venue – the Forum where our students perform, and engineer every month, and state-of-the art music studios and film and TV facilities in our 12 million pound building for Music, Film and media.

Course Details

The BSc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology course is designed for students who wish to interrogate music and media through music, sound design and immersive audio applications.  Focus is placed on sound and music as a component of multimedia, including the world of sound design as a creative process.   Students create and work on a range of media focused projects including moving image, game audio and voice over production as well as determining how sound can be delivered within both multi-speaker environments and ‘virtual’ spaces. 

Core modules studied alongside music and sound design technology practice modules develop students’ techniques and approaches using a range of sound technologies, as well as fostering professional and industrial contextual immersion and awareness, and experience with specialisms within connected music and sound related fields.

BSc (Hons) Music Production sits within the overarching Music & Sound Technology Programme.  There are four degree awards within this programme: BSc (Hons) Music Production, Bsc (Hons) Music and Sound Design Technology, BSc (Hons) Live Sound and Lighting Technology. 

All courses share the same ethos, and you’ll have opportunities to work alongside our music composition and music industry management students too, ensuring you benefit from teaching and experiences within a large community of musicians, composers, technologists and performers.

Within the wider school of creative arts at UH, there are opportunities to collaborate with students from other creative areas, including animation and film and TV, allowing you to network with a broad range of creative industries.

All three of our model design courses share the same First Year, giving you an excellent introduction to model making, prop making, sculpture and special effects. Building on this foundation, you’ll learn how to create highly detailed models for a range of disciplines, such as concept cars for the automotive industry, scale models for architects and miniatures for films.

In second year you will learn how to create highly detailed models for a range of disciplines, from concept cars for the automotive industry to the scale models used by architects and ‘movie miniatures’ for films.

In your Final Year you’ll work on major projects and create a professional portfolio to impress employers. Throughout your studies you’ll use the latest computer-aided design

Model Design Successes

The Model Design Programme is the only Special Effects course to have been accredited by Creative Skillset, the industry kite mark of quality following a rigorous assessment process by experts working in the Creative Industries and is awarded to practice-based courses which best prepare students for a career in the industry.

The programme has outstanding links with industry and this results in high profile work experience opportunities for our students. In 2013, our students worked on major feature films at leading UK studios, including making action props on Guardians of the Galaxy, Jupiter Ascending, Exodus and Black Sea.

In 2014, 92% of our second year students undertook work experience on four major feature films at Leavesden, Pinewood, Shepperton and Twickenham studios.

Graduates from this degree often work with leading figures in the creative industries and a host of companies including: Anarchy Ltd, Artem, Asylum, Berry Place, Darkside FX, Ferox Effects, Foster + Partners, Gerry Judah, Seymour Powell, Pipers and Zone Creations etc.

The programme regularly exhibits at the New Blades exhibition (held at Holborn Studios in London). In 2013, our graduates won three prizes making a total of thirteen awards we have won at New Blades in the last 4 years.

Articles about the work have featured in a variety of international publications including Wired Magazine and CNN.

Model Design Facilities

Our students’ work in a large airy purpose built studio (with individual spaces for every student), which is situated above an extensive workshop that contain a wide range of traditional and cutting edge technologies. Students are able to use a wide variety of equipment/machinery and state of the art rapid prototyping facilities: laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC milling and routing. Our students also use a well-equipped sculpture studio, which has excellent life drawing and modelling facilities, a plaster mould making area and industry standard extraction in the fiberglass/resin casting room. The sculpture workshops also provide excellent brazing, soldering and welding facilities for most types of metal fabrication and finishing. In addition to these dedicated workshop facilities, our students are taught a variety of computer aided design processes in both 2D and 3D packages in computer suites, which are situated close to the Model Design studio. Our students have access to all of the facilities across the school including excellent photographic equipment/studios and printing.

This is a unique combination of three interrelated degrees with a combined first year (Model, Character and Special Effects). The lecturing staff all have extensive subject knowledge gained from careers in the creative industries, hence students achieve professional standards in their work. We have excellent links with industry and provide placements on major movies at leading UK film studios.

• You will learn how to create highly detailed models for a wide range of disciplines from concept cars for the automotive industry and product prototyping, through to the scale buildings used by architects or ‘movie miniatures’ used in films.
• Excellent workshop facilities for both traditional model making machinery and cutting-edge prototyping technologies including; CAD, 3D printing, laser cutting and CNC machining sit alongside the specialist industry standard facilities for model making, product prototyping and prop making
• Outstanding work experience opportunities and collaborative projects provided by our very close contacts in the creative industries
• Industry professionals teach across all three pathways of the programme
• Model Effects students achieve consistently high graduate employment rates

Software engineering is a discipline that applies professional engineering techniques to the construction and evolution of large and complex software systems. This course adds a specialism in software engineering to a broad base in computer science. In the first two years there is an emphasis on software development, professional programming, the modelling and design of systems and data, the principles of networking and the user experience. Building on this foundation you’ll study software engineering in depth and learn how to analyse, design, develop and evaluate computer-based systems. You’ll also learn the application of engineering techniques, such as those relying on software metrics.

• Choose this course with an emphasis on Software Engineering building on a base of mainstream Computer Science, or change to one of the others in our flexible programme.
• Be taught by highly qualified staff, most with a PhD or other advanced degree plus research, teaching, or professional experience.
• Be part of a highly regarded well established computer science department with excellent facilities, a strong research background, and links to business and industry.
• Prepare yourself for a career in the IT sector through a mix of academic, professional and practical study, with opportunities for industry certifications and a paid placement year. Previous students have worked placements at companies including Intel, Microsoft, and Apple
• Recent graduates from Computer Science have gone on to work at amazing organisations including Ticketmaster, BAE Systems, and Ocado

Our BA Philosophy and Media degree allows you to learn more about how various media function and to examine the philosophical issues surrounding our attempts to represent the world. You’ll develop practical and theoretical knowledge of how various media techniques are implemented, whilst exploring and challenging the assumptions that frame the way we think, act and see the world around us.

In your first year, you’ll be introduced to a variety of ways in which communication can be achieved. You will learn to think critically by examining reasoning and persuasion and how that might be inflected by the medium in which it is conveyed, including the use of rhetoric and propaganda. You’ll also study social and political philosophy, covering topics such as freedom of speech, as well as examine the nature of knowledge and reality. There is also a philosophy module dedicated to exploring the scope and limits film and literature in what they can represent about reality.

All our philosophy lecturers are active researchers, so you’ll share the excitement of doing original work in a supportive and highly-rated academic community. Our Philosophy team is in the top 15 in the Guardian League Table 2019 and rates as one of the 100 best Philosophy departments worldwide in the 2017 QS rankings. The media staff are academics and practitioners in the creative industries and will give you the knowledge and understanding to be successful for a career in media.

In your second year, you’ll be able to select areas on which to focus, such as on influential works of philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and social and political philosophy. There is also a philosophy of art module, which tackles the question of the relation between artistic representations (in various media) and reality. You’ll also gain knowledge of research methods in the communications industry and learn about publishing.

In your final year, you’ll delve deeper into the media industry and into more specialist areas of Philosophy, including the opportunity to develop your understanding of the nature of communication in the philosophy of language module, or on the nature of the representation of women in the module on feminist philosophy.

• A flexible programme of study, allowing you to concentrate on areas you find especially interesting
• An exceptional academic team, conducting internationally renowned research
• Stimulating, innovative courses that allow you to make rewarding connections between two disciplines
• CV-building potential through work placements and extra-curricular activities

This course is ideal for students who are both creative and analytical, who want to learn about the business of fashion and who still have a desire to design and make, but ultimately want a fashion business-centric career. The course considers the complexities surrounding the global fashion industry to provide an in-depth appreciation of how products are manufactured, supplied and sold. Ultimately, you’ll gain the experience, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills to start your own company or to enter an existing one with a sound understanding of the business of fashion.Our strong collaborations with the likes of Ted Baker, Ally Capellino and Maria Grachvogel open up opportunities for live projects, work placements, competitions and employment.

The BA (Hons) Fashion and Fashion Business award is intended to equip graduates with the knowledge and skills to work in fashion business. The learning will prepare students to take up careers in a variety of fashion business roles including Buying, Merchandising, Sales and Marketing and Communication.  Fashion and Fashion Business is for students that are both creative, and analytical, who want to learn about the business of fashion, who still have a desire to design and make, but ultimately wish to pursue a fashion business centric career.

• We support freedom of expression and individuality and help our students to be industry informed, socially responsible and creatively prepared
• A unique course embracing an industry led Concept to Customer philosophy
• Exciting speakers from across the fashion industry and opportunities to attend company insight days and events.
• Strong industry relationships with a number of leading brands and designers collaborating through live projects, work placements, competition sponsorship and graduate employment opportunities
• A great spacious contemporary environment including industry standard resources for you to thrive in
• A highly experienced and dedicated academic and technical team putting your learning at the centre of the programme

Studying an MBA can transform the way you think and the way you work, change the way others see you and open up new leadership and management opportunities.

This full-time MBA enables you to develop the critical and reflective strategic leadership skills you need to succeed in an uncertain world, challenging your assumptions, cultivating flexible thinking, effective decision making and responsible management.

What will I study?

Our teaching and learning methods ensure you are able to actively engage with your own development. You’ll benefit from a blended learning approach which utilises web-based activities and reading, alongside simulations, reflective writing, discussions and live enterprise projects.

All of the teaching resources have been designed in a highly structured way and complementary way to take you progressively through business concepts and to give you confidence, enhance your skills and expertise when completing specific tasks.

A participative style is used throughout to enable you to learn from your fellow students, as well as from teaching staff. Experiential learning is central to our teaching philosophy.

There is a considerable emphasis on the utilisation of theory and knowledge to make sense of your own and fellow participants' experiences at work. Case study material is widely used alongside case histories developed by fellow participants.

The MBA at the University of Hertfordshire has multiple pathways for students:

• MBA
• MBA (Human Resource Management)
• MBA (Entrepreneurship)
• MBA (Digital Marketing)
• MBA (Finance)
• MBA (Healthcare)
• MBA (Public Services)
• MBA (Sustainable Industries)
• MBA (Data Analytics)
• MBA (Project Management)
• MBA (Management Consultancy)
• MBA (Information Systems)

This programme gives you in-depth knowledge of the scientific basis of drug discovery with a particular emphasis on toxicology, the science behind the safety of drugs. We make full use of our geographical location at the heart of the UK Pharmaceutical industry attracting numerous expert contributions from industry professionals (e.g. GSK, AZ). The course will cover all aspects of new medicine research and development from identifying novel targets through drug screening to clinical trials of candidate medicines. With our excellent facilities, emphasis on practical work, and teaching underpinned by the latest research, you will be qualified for research and development positions in pharmaceutical companies including discovery biology and toxicology, as well as a wide range of other non-laboratory roles in industry.

• This course is a natural progression for anyone completing an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Biochemistry, Pharmacology or Pharmaceutical Sciences, who is interested in a career in the Pharmaceutical industry. 
• The course will enable you to apply your biosciences knowledge to the particular challenges of developing safe and effective medicines.
• Our state of the art Science Building provides excellent facilities for laboratory based studies, including cell culture and plate reader based assays, isolated tissue studies, immunohistochemistry. 
• We make full use of our geographical location at the heart of the UK Pharmaceutical industry attracting numerous expert contributions from industry professionals.
• Offered as a part-time option to suit students who may already be in employment and wish to broaden their knowledge of the industry with support from their employer.